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Racial Character Evidence in Police Killing Cases Boston University School of Law Scholarly Commons at Boston University School of Law Faculty Scholarship 2018 Racial Character Evidence in Police Killing Cases Jasmine Gonzales Rose Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Evidence Commons, Law and Race Commons, and the Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons Working Paper No. 2018-17 May 2018 Racial Character Evidence in Police Killing Cases Jasmine B. Gonzales Rose First published at 2018 Wis. L. Rev. 369 (2018) University of Pittsburgh School of Law 3900 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260-6900 www.law.pitt.edu Direct: 412.624.7946 E-mail: [email protected] This paper can be downloaded without charge from the Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection: http://ssrn.com/abstract=3183408 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3183408 GONZALES ROSE – CAMERA READY (DO NOT DELETE) 5/2/2018 11:15 AM RACIAL CHARACTER EVIDENCE IN POLICE KILLING CASES JASMINE B. GONZALES ROSE∗ The United States is facing a twofold crisis: police killings of people of color and unaccountability for these killings in the criminal justice system. In many instances, the officers’ use of deadly force is captured on video and often appears clearly unjustified, but grand and petit juries still fail to indict and convict, leaving many baffled. This Article provides an explanation for these failures: juror reliance on “racial character evidence.” Too often, jurors consider race as evidence in criminal trials, particularly in police killing cases where the victim was a person of color. Instead of focusing on admissible evidence, jurors rely on race to determine the defendant’s innocence, the victim’s propensity for violence, and the witnesses’ credibility. This Article delineates the ways in which juror racial bias is utilized to take on evidentiary value at trial and constructs evidence law solutions to increase racial equality in the courtroom. Introduction ................................................................... 370 I. Unaccountability for Racialized Police Killings ....................... 376 A. Pervasiveness and Recurrence of Racialized Police Killings ........................................................... 376 B. Prosecutorial Reluctance to Pursue Charges ................ 377 C. Grand Juries Fail to Indict ..................................... 380 D. Juries Fail to Convict ........................................... 382 E. Judges Fail to Punish ........................................... 384 F. The Impact of Unaccountability .............................. 385 II. Racial Character Evidence and Its Role in Police Killing Cases .. 386 A. Racial Character Evidence in General......................... 387 1. Overview of Character Evidence .......................... 387 2. Overview of Racial Character Evidence ................. 389 3. Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado: A Racial Character Evidence Case Study ....................................... 391 B. Racial Character Evidence in Police Killing Cases .......... 395 1. Case Study: Prosecution of Jeronimo Yanez for ∗ Assistant Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh School of Law. I am honored that this Article was selected for the American Constitution Society Junior Public Law Scholars Workshop at the 2018 Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting. This project has benefited greatly from the feedback of Deborah Archer, Mario Barnes, Devon Carbado and the students of his Advanced Critical Race Theory Scholarship Workshop at the UCLA School of Law, Alexandra Farone, Allison Hall, Laura Victorelli, and others. Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3183408 GONZALES ROSE – CAMERA READY (DO NOT DELETE) 5/2/2018 11:15 AM 370 WISCONSIN LAW REVIEW Killing Philando Castile.................................... 396 C. Categorizing Racial Character Evidence ...................... 401 1. Inherent Reliance ........................................... 402 2. Racial Stereotype Emphasis ............................... 405 a. Stereotypical Blackness ............................... 405 b. The “Black Brute” or “Thug” Stereotype ......... 408 3. Expert or Lay Opinion ..................................... 413 III. Racial Character Evidence: A Civil Rights Problem ............... 416 A. Constitutionality of Racial Character Evidence Against Victims ........................................................... 416 1. The Promise and Limitations of Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado ..................................................... 416 IV. Evidence Law Solutions to Racial Character Evidence ............ 421 A. Need for Critical Race Evidence Education................. 422 B. Confronting Racial Character Evidence in Grand Juries .. 423 C. Evidentiary Objections to Racial Character Evidence ..... 425 1. Improper Character Evidence ............................. 425 2. Lack of Relevance .......................................... 427 3. Risk of Unfair Prejudice ................................... 429 4. Inadmissible Expert Witness Testimony ................ 430 5. Inadmissible Lay Opinion Testimony .................... 431 D. Rebuttal Evidence of Victims’ Good Character ............ 432 E. Jury Instructions................................................. 436 Conclusion ..................................................................... 438 INTRODUCTION “I think he did it because he’s Mexican” and the alibi witness was not credible because he’s “an illegal.”1 Too often jurors consider race as evidence of a person’s character in criminal trials. Instead of focusing on admissible evidence, jurors impermissibly rely on “racial character evidence”2 to determine 1. Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado, 137 S. Ct. 855, 862 (2017). This case offers an example of a juror’s reliance on racial character evidence against a defendant and his alibi witness to discriminatorily convict the defendant. Although less recognized, racial character evidence against a victim can similarly be relied upon to discriminatorily acquit a defendant, which is the subject of this Article. 2. This term was coined in Jasmine B. Gonzales Rose, Toward a Critical Race Theory of Evidence, 101 MINN. L. REV. 2243, 2262–63 (2017) and refers to an Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3183408 GONZALES ROSE – CAMERA READY (DO NOT DELETE) 5/2/2018 11:15 AM 2018:369 Racial Character Evidence 371 whether a defendant is guilty or innocent, whether a victim is aggressive or peaceful, or whether a witness is credible or not credible. The term “racial character evidence” refers to the way a person’s race is used as de facto proof of his or her character. More specifically, it describes how race—in tandem with racial stereotypes and biases—is relied upon or emphasized to establish the person’s character propensity to be peaceful, violent, truthful, deceptive, or a variety of other traits. Fact-finders then rely upon this racial character evidence to determine how a party, witness, or victim acted during a given event, such as during an interaction between a police officer and community member. Character evidence to prove one’s propensity to engage in certain behavior is generally prohibited,3 and racial character evidence is never appropriate. Yet, the use of racial character evidence generally falls beneath the radar of judges. Juror reliance on racial character evidence has been difficult to uncover since, in most jurisdictions, evidence rules barred jurors from testifying about racial bias in deliberations or grand jury proceedings during an inquiry into the validity of the verdict or indictment.4 instance in which admitted evidence introduced ostensibly for non-character purposes aligns with or promotes reliance on racial stereotypes or bias (whether negative or positive) and has the effect of character evidence by suggesting something is more likely to have occurred based on the race of the subject. See also Montré D. Carodine, Contemporary Issues in Critical Race Theory: The Implications of Race as Character Evidence in Recent High–Profile Cases, 75 U. PITT. L. REV. 679, 687 (2014) (“[W]hen what we think of in a more traditional sense as evidence confirms any negative racial stereotypes (like blacks being dishonest or criminally inclined), it exacerbates the preexisting problem of race as character evidence.”); Chris Chambers Goodman, The Color of Our Character: Confronting the Racial Character of Rule 404(b) Evidence, 25 L. & INEQ. 1, 3 (2007). The term [racial character evidence] is partly accurate and partly a misnomer. Racial character evidence is evidence in the sense that juries often rely upon it in reaching a verdict. However, it is not technically evidence because it is usually not formally introduced or subjected to evidentiary scrutiny. In other words, it is not admissible legal proof. Gonzales Rose, supra, at 2262. 3. See, e.g., FED. R. EVID. 404(a)(1) (“Evidence of a person’s character or character trait is not admissible to prove that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the character or trait.”). However, limited exceptions exist for criminal defendants to introduce opinion or reputation evidence of their or a victim’s character. FED. R. EVID. 404(a)(2). Or it may be introduced in rare instances when character evidence is an essential element of a claim or defense. FED. R. EVID. 405. 4. See, e.g., FED. R. EVID. 606(b). The rule states: During an inquiry into the validity of a verdict or indictment, a juror may
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